Double Seven Chapter
__FORCETOC__ Introduction It basically describes what happened in the early days of Magician manufacturing and the horrible human rights abuses that occurred. In the attempt to build a stable breeding population of the new "race", countries almost allowed publicly sanctioned rape to occur. Babies the first Development Institutes around the world would die, but from that scientists learned how to create the most successful zygotes and also learned how to test latent magic skill levels. The reason that the Ten Master Clans became the world's most refined example of Magician lineages was because the Japanese were the ones able to most culturally accept the idea of marrying for the sake of producing magically elite offspring. Prologue Sakurai Minami is tested by the Yotsuba Clan to evaluate her abilities as a Guardian. She passes, and is ordered to attend First High as a guardian of Miyuki. Chapter 1 Miyuki is elated at the fact that her Onii-sama now has an emblem on his jacket. This emblem of the eight gear petal denotes the new Magic Engineering Curriculum; which technically came into being due to Tatsuya's overwhelming abilities the year before, forcing the First High administration to acknowledge that leaving Tatsuya as a Course 2 would be a detrimental to their image. Sakurai Minami is now living with Tatsuya and Miyuki and her fake relationship is that of their cousin from their mother's side. She refers to them as "Tatsuya- niisama" and "Miyuki- neesama". She has a rigid adherence to professionalism and wishes to carry out her housemaid duties, which is challenged by Miyuki's desire to take care of her Onii-sama. By now, they have both reached a compromise on the housework chores. They discuss the upcoming term and the problems that may arise. Tatsuya then asks Minami to accompany them to a party at Shizuku's house later that evening. She obeys his order, looking disgruntled as she, like him, doesn't like attention. Chapter 2 Tatsuya, Miyuki and Minami go to the Kitayama party that they were invited to. Shizuku's mother Benio latches onto Tatsuya to interrogate him about him and Honoka's relationship and why he refused her confession even though she would serve him faithfully. She then proceeds to ask him about who he really is since even with the Kitayama's power and that of the Corporate Alliance, she was unable to find anything of note in Tatsuya's Personal Data, even though according to her daughter, Shizuku, Tatsuya is someone of the highest caliber who is practically "divine". Tatsuya angers Shizuku's mother by being himself (practically brushing her off, acting ignorant and being haughty) trying to protect his secret, resulting in Shizuku's father stepping in to quell his wife's frustation. After distancing himself from the Kitayama parents, he is introduced to Kiyatama Wataru (Shizuku's brother) who asks him if people unable to use magic can become a magic engineer, which results in a negative answer from Tatsuya. However, after telling Wataru that, he adds that even without magical ability, one can still help construct and build things like CADs and magical supplementary equipment that would be of help to Magicians with enough knowledge and skill. Seeing their kids in such high spirits and showing signs of adoration of Tatsuya, Kitayama Benio is uneasy while Kitayama Ushio confides in her about how he feels even more wary and on guard around Tatsuya than he is around the members of the Ten Master Clans that he is affiliated with. The Shiba siblings meet Shizuku's cousin, and his fiancee, the actress Sawamura Maki, whom Tatsuya instantly picks up a bad vibe from. They decline an invitation from her, that pisses her off. Chapter 3 Sawamura Maki transitions from the smiling, perfect fiancee to scheming conspirator the moment her "fiancé" drops her off at her house, and instantly starts scheming with a new student of First High, Takuma Shippou, giving him misinformation about her meeting with the Shiba siblings at the Kitayama party. She causes him to feel enmity and hatred for the siblings by lying and telling him that they have a close relationship with Saegusa Mayumi. It is revealed that Shippou is working with Maki because of his rivalry with the Saegusa and wish to return his family to their place in the Ten Master Clans. Chapter 4 Two young girls foil the plot of an anti-magic group by using high level magic and very capable combative abilities. It turns out that they are the Kuroba siblings, Ayaka and Fumiya, and one of them is cross dressing in order to obscure his identity. Ayako's magical ability is revealed to be Mock Teleportation while Fumiya's is the ability to cast debilitating pain directly onto his victim's mind. Chapter 5 Miyuki and Tatsuya are walking to school, walking so close to each other that they seem to be arm in arm. They receive a lot of disapproving looks but nobody says anything. As they walk, Tatsuya notices one gaze filled with something akin to jealousy directed towards Miyuki, which is difficult to do due to her innate qualities. Their friends arrive and they see Mizuki and Tatsuya's new blazers with the eight petal flower surrounded by a cog emblem that signifies their acceptance into the Magic Engineering Course. Mikihiko is a Course 1 student now, but Erika and Leo are still Course 2 students. Erika and Leo were put in the same class, which irritates both of them. They hang out in the new Magic Engineering classroom where Mizuki is seated next to Tatsuya. Chiaki is still glaring at him, still hating him from last year even though he has more reason to hate her then vice versa. As they wait for class to start, Tomitsuka introduces himself, shocking everyone as he finished the year 5th in the grade overall, so they don't know why he transferred. He explains about his inability to use long range targeting magic and how it makes it difficult to be a combatant in the eyes of his family. Amy walks in and cheerfully says good morning, overwhelming Tomitsuka. When Mizuki calls her Akechi-san, she gets angry and orders her to call her by her nickname. She then turns and starts snarking at Tomitsuka to use the nickname as well. Overwhelmed, he runs towards Chiaki's table and says good morning. Amy follows. The bell rings and in walks the teacher, Jennifer Smith, a Nordic looking woman from the USNA, naturalised as a citizen 18 years ago. In the Student Council Office, Tatsuya is acting as Vice President due to the agreement between Azusa and Kanon. He hadn't argued the decision as Miyuki would have persuaded him otherwise. Mikihiko had been approved as Tatsuya's successor in the Public Morals Committee and Shizuku had been pulled over from the clubs. They are having a welcome party. They discuss the new teacher and the freshman's representative address, which Azusa and Miyuki look nauseous over. Apparently it is very difficult, so they organised more rehearsals than normal this year. Apparently the representative, Shippou Takuma, is an ambitious boy, worrying Azusa. At home, Tatsuya and Miyuki are drinking coffee and commenting on Shippou's personality. Flashback time: Tatsuya introduces himself to Shippou who acts snotty, angering Miyuki who unleashes her Snow Queen persona. The others are at a loss of what to do and Tatsuya doesn't do anything to stop the argument. Cut flashback: Miyuki comments that she felt hostile intent from him, having not seen him on the way to school that morning. Tatsuya tells her that due to the rivalry the Shippou Clan from the 18 Assistant Houses and the Saegusa Clan feel for each other, the Shippou family feel the strongest desire to join the ranks of the Ten Master Clans. He explains that Takuma probably wants to gain the spotlight to prove that he deserves the position of a member of the Ten Master Clans, causing his hostility. Miyuki shows her understanding by saying that Takuma is jealous of her Onii-sama's reputation, making Tatsuya almost choke. He tells her that she is the target of his jealousy due to her power being acknowledged by others and her position as Freshman Representative last year. He recommends caution since he is from the 28 Families. Chapter 6 Opening ceremony: Tatsuya is in the Student Council now, Mikihiko joins the Disciplinary Committee as his replacement and Shizuku also gets reeled into the Committee. Tatsuya is on shepherd duty (directing lost students to the ceremony), Mayumi finds him, they talk. Mayumi's sister Kasumi thought Tatsuya was trying to hit on Mayumi which resulted in illegal usage of Close Quarter Combat acceleration magic, which Tatsuya easily deals with giving Kasumi a surprise, and he meets the Saegusa twins Kasumi and Izumi. Mayumi apologizes about her two sisters and pleads Tatsuya to not report what happened. Tatsuya tells her it wasn't a big deal, and deletes any evidence of what happened via Pixie after leaving the Saegusa sisters. While on patrol, a lost student calls out to him. After being shown the way, and given a map, Tatsuya learns that the student's name is Kent Smith, who initially was going to attend Fourth High, but after witnessing Tatsuya's amazing accomplishments during the Nine Schools Competition, he had to get into First High so that Tatsuya would be his senior, with the goal of also getting into the Magic Engineering Department like Tatsuya. Tatsuya feels the respect and admiration is overwhelming, but tells Kent good luck (Kent reminds him of a male Honoka). While waiting for the ceremony to begin, Kasumi asks Izumi about who the skirt chaser hitting on their sister Mayumi was. Izumi is dismayed to learn Kasumi didn't know, and tells Kasumi about Tatsuya's previous accomplishments the year before; how, although a second course first year student, he was a representative of First High for the Nine Schools Competition as an engineer. How all the girls in his charge were practically invincible beating out every other school, losing only to each other. He was also used as a sub to help their sister, Mayumi, in one of her competitions despite being a first year (although she did neglect his accomplishments on Monolith Code). Kasumi is shocked to learn how amazing Tatsuya is, but divulges that she still doesn't like him, and that Mayumi is letting her guard down too much when she is around him. It turns out that Shippou Takuma is the new freshmen's student representative this year. After giving his speech, the Student Council offers him a place in the council as is tradition, but Takuma refuses the invitation, saying that he would like to focus on activities and not managerial roles. Mikihiko confides in Tatsuya about something that may have to do with Erika and the Rosen group. Hattori apologizes to Azusa about the situation with Takuma, feeling bad that it looks like he stole Takuma from the Council for the Clubs, but Azusa tells him otherwise. It is revealed that, like Juumonji; a scion of one of the numbered houses, Takuma will also be groomed in order to be the leader for the Club Management Group. With the representative refusing their offer, Tatsuya is tasked with asking Izumi and Kasumi to join the Student Council. Kasumi adamantly refuses since she hates Tatsuya, but Izumi happily obliges due to her obsession with Miyuki, whom she views as a goddess. Counsellor Ono Haruka skilfuly manipulates Kasumi into joining the Public Morals Committee by using Kasumi's dislike of Tatsuya and her competitiveness towards him. Chapter 7 Club recruitment week. Kirihara is amused at the irony that this year he is one of the ones helping to keep the peace during recruitment week considering he almost got suspended the previous year for causing trouble. This pains both Tatsuya and Hattori. Hattori tells the Shiba siblings (who are on standby to help) to go check out the conflict between the Robotics and the Biker Club. It turns out that Kent was the cause, since both clubs wanted to gain a pretty boy mascot (similar to Erika last year). Things get blown out of proportion when Kasumi from the Public Morals Committee and Takuma from the Clubs Management Group start to argue. Luckily, everything is settled before anything serious happens. Chapter 8 At the Saegusa house. Kasumi tells her sister about what transpired and how annoyed she is. They wonder about Takuma's actions. The twins ask Mayumi about Shippou's father and learns that he is a practical person who would always pick the path with the least risk and could be somewhat considered a coward. They come to the conclusion that someone or something else is backing Shippou Takuma's actions. Sawamura Maki visits the Saegusa house and tries to appease Saegusa Koichi with honeyed words, but Koichi reads her like a book and finds out she has ulterior motives, but tells her as long as it does not involve anyone from the Saegusa, then he does not care and will not meddle in her affairs. After Maki leaves, Koichi calls Kudou Retsu, and they conspire against the Yotsuba (Koichirou's idea, Kudou is just okay with it). Chapter 9 At the Shiba household. The Kuroba siblings visit the Shiba siblings. Miyuki congratulates the Kuroba siblings for getting into Fourth High. Fumiya tells them that he had wanted to get into First High, but had been ordered not to since there would be too many of them in one place. Fumiya and Ayako relays the information they obtained from their previous mission, and Tatsuya commends Fumiya on his impressive ability to utilize the Kuroba's intelligence network. Chapter 10 Magic University. Katsuto had called Mayumi to the cafeteria area to talk. Their conversation was about the rise of anti-magic propaganda that's been gaining ground. Katsuto tells Mayumi that with the Juumonji information network, they have found out that it may be the Saegusa that is funding this anti-magic campaign. Mayumi is opposed to the accusation, and resolves to setting up a meeting for Katsuto with her father to clarify this misunderstanding. It wasn't a misunderstanding. Saegusa Koichi straight out commends Katsuto for figuring it out. As a rep of the Juumonji family and the next head, Katsuto asks that Koichi ceases his actions, but Koichi asks that he gets a written petition first, before he does any such thing. After Juumonji Katsuto leaves, Mayumi asks her father why, and tries to get him to stop. Koichi throws out Kudou Retsu's name to try to quell her argument, but she kept at him vehemently about the repercussions it could bring. Koichi wonders why his daughter is so adamant about her point since normally she would stop if Kudou Retsu's name is mentioned. It prompts him to ask if she was trying to protect a specific unnamed underclassmen, resulting in her unable to answer and getting cold sweats. Chapter 11 Tatsuya gets a call from Ayako. Ayako gives him a juicy piece of information that anti-magic Congressman Kanda, one of the biggest anti-magic advocates, will visit First High with reporters in order to propagate that magic high schools are really just institutes to militarize magicians. Ayaka then tells him she is looking forward to what he'll do in response. In the council room, Tatsuya relays the information of the visit to the student council, Tatsuya proposes to the Student Council about his idea of challenging one of the 3 Great Puzzles, namely the thermonuclear fusion reactor to thwart Congressman Kanda's plans. After disclosing the procedures and how he was going to do it, Azusa and Isori agree to his plans. They submit the experiment to the teachers, and it gets approved with the condition that a teacher must be present. Students are choosing the individual jobs for the experiment, and preparations start. After school, Honoka gives Tatsuya a birthday present, and Shizuku asks him if it is alright to throw him a birthday party. Chapter 12 On the way home from school, Miyuki tells Minami to go home ahead to prepare dinner. Miyuki takes Tatsuya around shopping. When they get home, it turns out Minami was preparing for Tatsuya's birthday, and Miyuki was keeping him away until it was ready. Tatsuya opens his present he gets from Honoka in his room, he finds an expensive pocket watch with the Kitayama mark on it. Miyuki dresses up and brings wine into Tatsuya's room so they can celebrate his birthday with just the two of them. She gives him his present, which is a locket pendant with her picture inside. Chapter 13 Shippou Takuma comes back late from Sawamura Maki's place, and finds out that his dad wanted to talk to him. Takuma gets into an argument with his father, and is angry that his father would just be content with his position as one of the 28 Families without even vying for the position of the Ten Master Clans. His father tells him that such things are pointless and that the Saegusas are different, his dad also warns him of the Congressman's intentions tomorrow, and for Takuma to not go to school since Takuma is prone to provocations. tldr: Congressman Kanda visits. Stuff goes down, the experiment Tatsuya designed was successful, causing Tsuzura sensei to get a compliment out of Congressman Kanda to put him in check. Chapter 14 The press is praising the work of the experiment performed yesterday at First High. Everyone is happy. All except Takuma who was not part of the experiment. While going home, seeing Kasumi, Takuma jeered at her and conflict ensues. Unauthorized usage of magic occurred and both parties are getting reprimanded with Takuma potentially getting into very big trouble for using magic in an attempt to take out an upperclassmen (which he himself got done in first). With Takuma in the Club Management Group, and Kasumi in the Public Morals Committee, Kanon and Hattori were both unable to make a choice seeing as they were both biased towards their own underclassmen, which results in having Tatsuya pick the punishment. Instead of being punished, Tatsuya opted for the have them fight route, as he had done with Hattori in the previous year. Takuma asks that Izumi also be in the fight, since only then will the twins display their true strength. After obtaining the permission slip and place of contest, Tatsuya announces the rules of the battle between the three, and tells them that he will forcibly stop the match if he deems it necessary. Takuma sneered. The battle goes. Twins use multiplicative magic and conjures a suffocating turbulence. Shippou uses his trump and causes his book pages to shred into a million pieces invoking his strongest magic Million Edge. Twins add fire to the turbulence, making it a flaming suffocating turbulence. Pages of books get caught on fire, and burn out, but most still aimed for the twins. Seeing things were getting dangerous, Tatsuya invokes his magic and blows away all traces of any magic in the room. The three combatants are dumbfounded. After hearing that they all lost, due to rule violations of being unable to control their magics, Takuma starts arguing with Tatsuya. The whining drags on, and Kasumi, fed up, conceded the win to Takuma seeing that he wouldn't stop arguing otherwise. Kasumi announces that she did not lose control of her magic and leaves. Tatsuya gives a message to Izumi, which changes Izumi's opinion of Tatsuya. After the twins left, unable to accept the loss, Takuma challenges Tatsuya to a duel with the intention that he would defeat Tatsuya with Million Edge and not hurt Tatsuya. Hearing such a ridiculous thing, Miyuki was going to blow up, but instead, Tomitsuka, one of the spectators, went first and struck Takuma yelling at him to "not push your luck". Tomituska yells at Takuma and after some words by Miyuki, calms down. Seeing things concluded, Tatsuya leaves and heads back to the Student Council room. Not long after, Hattori comes in and requests for another permission slip for a duel. This time; Takuma vs. Tomitsuka. Chapter 15 Zhou Gongjin finds out that some of the press have backed out of their promises, prompting him to call on some 'friends' to get retribution. The traitor turns out to be Sawamura Yoshio, CEO of Culture Communication Network, but due to the fact that he is away on a business trip in Paris, Zhou decides to punish his daughter, Sawamura Maki, instead. Takuma is absent from school, rumors abound about the reason, but Tatsuya correctly infers that he is preparing for the upcoming dual with Tomitsuka. Tatsuya, along with some help, is able to blackmail/convince Sawamura Maki into leaving high schoolers and Takuma alone. Tatsuya is also able to thwart the attempt attack on Sawamura Maki, by incapacitating the attackers and subsequently destroying the flying ship the attackers were using. Zhou Gongjin finds out that the attack on Sawamura Maki has failed and that it was due to interference by "...that man again." (Note: Zhou is not aware who Tatsuya is.) He decides to try and find out "that man’s" identity. Chapter 16 The battle between Tomitsuka and Takuma is finally upon them. With plenty of spectators, the battle commences. Million Edge is used right off the bat, and its target is Tomitsuka, yet with a flash of light, all the papers lose their magic, and thus everyone finds out that another rare user of Gram Demolition is in the same year as Tatsuya. Albeit, his type is Contact Type Gram Demolition. Theorizing his victory and seeing the faults of Gram Demolition, Takuma uses his skill accordingly, but unlike what he expected, the outcome was an overwhelming defeat by Tomitsuka. With a punch imbued by magic, Takuma is defeated and the wind knocked out of him. After somewhat regaining his cognitive abilities and with the question from Tomitsuka if he was alright, he thanks Tomitsuka, and obediently moves to the wall to rest and recuperate after being told to do so by Tomitsuka. After seeing Takuma reaching the wall, Tomitsuka looks at Tatsuya and asks for a fight. Seeing it as troublesome, Tatsuya asks why, which Tomitsuka replies "I want Shippou-kun to witness Shiba-san's strength". Looking like it will be a rejection, Hattori has to throw in some help saying it is to show the levels of an accomplished magician. Instead of accepting, Tatsuya says Sawaki and Hattori would be a better match if that was the case, which leads to Miyuki jumping in to address her brother and that it is about time he showed his strength. Seeing her like that, Tatsuya accepts. The match is totally different from the previous match as Takuma can see. It was not a one sided beat down, but a martial brawl between two very high level magicians. Even though he can use the same magic as them, the application of the magic was on a whole different level, leading him into shock even further. Seeing the Course 2 student that he looked down on fight evenly with a Course 1 student and even defeating him decisively, Shippou runs out of the contest area. Hitting his fist against a tree in anger, Kasumi yells out to him and bandages his bloody knuckles. Unable to bear it, he cries out and asks why the seniors are so strong, even though they are only one year apart. Kasumi gives him her thought, and a tear of regret forms in Shippou's eyes. She leaves him, and he goes back to hitting the tree. This time with his palm. Tatsuya is in the council room. He issues an order to Pixie to modify what had happened during the match. Epilogue Category:Releases Category:Light Novel